Spicy Web Designer Interview with Oliver Ker

Oliver Ker is a web designer from Huddersfield in West Yorkshire in the United Kingdom. He is a “self taught” web designer who has been designing websites for about the last 10 years learning the ins and outs of PHP, Javascript, HTML and CSS along the way. He works for ML Badges & More as their sole designer.

1. How did you get started in web design?

I started in ‘proper’ web design when I created my first website for ML Badges & More (www.mlbadges.com), the company I work for. I am the sole designer at ML and they had no web presence when I got the job, They sent me on a course which was teaching in table layouts, little did I know this was old hat before I’d even learnt anything, I took some of the knowledge, built our website and have not stopped learning and don’t think I ever will. We now have a successful e-commerce store for school badges (www.mlbadges.com/schools).

2. When did you start designing websites?

Probably about 10+ years ago on a free WYSIWYG but not professionally until just a few years ago

3. What are the biggest challenges that you face in web design currently?

Clients’ budgets. We all get the requests for big dynamic websites for £500 and less. There are many articles out there that are better written than I could, but due to the web industry being fairly young and not fully understood, means clients don’t know how long things take and the effort and research that goes into it – it’s not clients fault (most of the time)

4. Do you code any of the web sites that you design currently? If so, what language(s) do you code in?

Yes, I do most of my own front end coding (HTML/CSS) and use textpattern to build the majority of my sites. I am a trying WordPress at the moment, but find textpattern easier to achieve exactly what I want.

I do use PHP and JavaScript (moo tools) but cannot write in either of these languages.

5. Did you study design at school or are you self-taught?  If you went to school, how has your education helped you become a better web design professional?  What other skills has it helped you to gain and what else has it taught you about design in general?

I studied graphic design at A-level, and got half way through foundation year, but got bored and wanted to leave and get some work experience. I believe the best learning is by doing real life examples day in-day out. Also learn from others, follow what your peers and colleagues are doing and how they have done it. There are a lot of well written articles that give you help and expertise, but leaning by trying whether at school or work is the best way to learn.

6. Since you first started how has the web design industry changed? Has it changed for the better? If so, how? If not, please explain?

The social media “web 2.0″ has taken over, but it has not only changed the web, but the way a lot of companies now do business and spend their advertising budgets – So I think the web has changed the business world more, even If we don’t notice it.

Also fonts on the web is changing, we have always had fonts, by using image replacement and sIFR, but only the other day typekit was announced and looks promising for new easier type on the web.

7. What are your favorite tools to use when designing a web project? Why are they your favorite tools?

For design mock ups I used to use illustrator, coming from more a graphical background, but have used Photoshop for the last couple of projects, which I find a little bit better for web designs.

For coding I use Coda, but if I am creating an HTML email I switch to Dreamweaver because of its ease to create table based layouts.